Flint Life, Thin Patches & Feel Good Time For CAYUGAD

Semisane · 03-30-2010, 06:44 PM

I had a long and fun session with the Great Plains .54 flintlock Sunday morning.

I shot 45 times on the same flint that was in the gun and it was still sparking well when I quit. I only had a "klatch" on one shot, and wiped the fouling off of the bottom of the flint and it went off fine on the second c0ck fall. Checked my records when I got home and found that flint already had a dozen or so shots on it from the last range session. Its a black English flint from a pack of a dozen that I bought from Track of the Wolf. So far I've gotten at least fifty shots out of every flint from that pack.

I've been wanting to try some very thin/easy loading patches. So I picked up some .008 bleached muslin from JoAnn's fabric shop and cut a bunch of patches to try. They start easily with thumb pressure and take only one hand on the rod to seat on the charge. I used a 1/8" wonder wad under my hunting load of 85 grains FFFg GOEX for some serious target work and they shot about the same as the .017 table cloth and .018 pillow tic patches I usually use. It sure was nice not to have to use a short starter.

Anyway, just for the heck of it I used the thin patches and a light charge of 60 grains to take 10 quick shots without wads and without swabbing between shots . Here's that target.

Now all of this shooting has been with the Lyman peep sight and from the bench with Caldwell shooting rests. I haven't shot off-hand standing on my hind legs without any sort of a rest in a long time. So I thought I would wrap up the day with five off-hand shots at fifty yards just to make Cayugad feel good about his open sight shooting. I almost threw that target away, but what the heck - I ain't proud. (Embarrassed, but not proud.)

Breechplug · 03-31-2010, 05:14 AM

Semi, seems you had a Blast! next time keep the Coffee to a minimum when shooting off hand, just imagine if it was a Big Buck you were shooting at,LOL! Anyway the first target looked good, mabey Mountian Devil should take lessons from you on posting targets, again,LOL! You know you could have blamed the second target on the 50mph Winds and all the Dust in your eyes.......
(BP)

cayugad · 03-31-2010, 05:15 AM

That white muslin makes a good cleaning patch too. I bought a couple yards of that as well and have tried it. It did work good when I was shooting them .535 ball out of my Lyman.

That is some real good shooting. Even off hand. Anyone that does not do a lot of off hand shooting will find that out when they try.

Mr.Flintlock · 04-02-2010, 05:06 AM

I always use .018 pillow ticking when hunting but I load my speed loaders with Bridgers .010 pre-lubed patches. I have found that quick reloading in my once fired barrel is easy.

bronko22000 · 04-04-2010, 04:42 PM

Semi - Don't feel bad. A flinter is hard to get the hang of offhand. And if you look closely at that target and you were holding dead center on a deer you would definately have 4 hits and that low one a maybe. And at 50 yds, that ain't too shabby. Now you can go beat on your chest.....good job.
Not as much 'flair' as I'm used to reading from you, but good job.